Conventionally, various devices in which a plurality of circuit units are disposed side by side have been used. Generally, such devices have an overheat protection function in order to prevent a breakdown, or the like thereof due to overheated circuit units.
According to a general overheat protection function, for example, when a certain circuit unit is overheated, power consumption thereof is reduced. Thus, heating of the overheated circuit unit is restrained, and when heating of the circuit unit is a main cause of overheating, the circuit unit is expected to recover from the overheated state.
Temperatures of the respective circuit units as described above may be affected by heat generated from a neighboring circuit unit, as well as heat generated by themselves. When a certain circuit unit overheats, another major anticipated reason for overheating is from an influence of heat diffused from a neighboring circuit unit.
In this case, only reducing power consumption of the overheated circuit unit may take time for the circuit unit to recover from the overheated state or may make it difficult for the circuit unit to recover from the overheated state. Also, in order to seek recovery from the overheated state by only reducing power consumption of the overheated circuit unit, power consumption of the circuit unit needs to be relatively greatly reduced. For this reason, the function of the circuit unit may be greatly limited.